The president vents to associates about the FBI raids on his personal attorney Michael Cohen — as often as “20 times a day,” in the estimation of one confidant — and they frequently listen in silence, knowing little they say will soothe him. Trump gripes that he needs better “TV lawyers” to defend him on cable news and is impatient to halt the “witch hunt” that he says undermines his legitimacy as president.

Trump's paranoia about his "legitimacy" is a red herring. Electoral college victories are not unprecedented and Americans accept the result, however reluctantly. The issue with the Russia investigation isn't so much that there is a suspicion that Trump is illegitimate because of the interference but that he's compromised, potentially being blackmailed, by a foreign government. The fact that he's also obviously corrupt in virtually every way plays into that suspicion.

This "legitimacy" question is something he cooked up to excuse his obstruction of the investigation and way too many reporters parrot the excuse as if it's a fact. He's just defending his presidency. God bless America. But he doesn't really care about that. He's freaked out because he's afraid of what the investigation is going to turn up about him, whether Russian kompromat, money laundering, corruption, cheating on his taxes, whatever. He has secrets. Big secrets. Only a man with an ego the size of Jupiter would have ever thought of running for president with that much baggage.